WARNING! THIS IS HIGHLY ADDICTIVE STUFF, DO NOT BLAME ME IF YOU GET STUCK ON GOOGLE EARTH

Have you used Google Earth before? Then you know that it is AMAZING.

Have you used it to have a look around in the world? I am talking about another way of virtual travel, instead of the cyber cruise.

It is easy, just download Google Earth from here, install it and begin to drag, point and zoom to any place you want to explore at the earth globe – all in high-resolution 3D!

It has a very powerful search feature, so be sure to use it. Search style tips: “hotels near picadilly circus” – if that is what you want to get as a result.

Be sure to read the Google Earth Help information, you get a lot of very useful tips there.

Why not take a trip here:

The Victoria falls, between Zambia and Zimbabwe, probably the worlds largest falls. The only one that can be compared with the Victoria Falls is the Iguassu Falls in South America where I’ve been and Tor soon is going to, so I really can confirm that!

Write the name of the place you want to go to or the coordinates in this format: -17.925511,25.858223 (Latitude, Longitude)

Or to an awesome rock formation called The Badlands Guardians located in Alberta, Canada. Take a look – it looks like a human head dressed in feathers! (Coordinates: 50.010083,-110.113006)

You can placemark the places and share them with your friends. Add photos, your own words, restaurant reviews among other things.

Google Earth file formats are .KML or .KMZ.

Useful travel tools with Google Earth:

(You need to have it installed first before clicking the links)

Panoramio (Already in version 4.2.x)
An extensive collection of shared photos from around the world. Tip: Go to http://www.panoramio.com to upload and map your own photos to show up in Google Earth.

The World in Panoramic View
Fly around the globe exploring hundreds of high quality panoramic images taken by everyday people. Each placemark offers an image preview, a brief description and link to the full panorama.

Geographically Organized Webcams
With nearly 3000 webcams collected. Click on the placemark to view an image of the webcam and see what’s going on in that part of the world.

360 Cities (Google Earth 4.2)
Hundreds of panoramas. Each city has a variety of locations. From glitz and glamour to the hot deserts – something for all travel tastes.

Google Earth is indeed amazing. I have a collection of pics of the reported locations, by dns number, of readers of my MySpace page, taken from Google Earth, through a web visitor tracking widget. Kind of scary and big brotherish, I know, but It’s really harmless. The dns address reported by my computer at home is actually 50 miles off.

I’ve been checking it out today trying to figure out what is located near our house. So cool! I love the thing where you can see the stars too. I’m gonna have to check out the places you mentioned! hehe

I love Google Earth! I haven’t experimented with most of the sites you pointed out above, but I think I’d better give a few of them a try. I’ve been using Google Maps in my blog for a while, so it’s probably time to step it up a notch anyway…

Wow what an incredible design you have!
I adore Google Earth and spend many an hour traveling the globe this way. I often then have to find out more about a place I am viewing which leads me on to further discovery and learning.